Warren on Sanders supporters’ online attacks: ‘I think it’s a real problem’

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) said Thursday that presidential candidates are responsible for attacks their supporters are making online, adding that such attacks are a problem among supporters of Sen. Bernie Sanders’s (I-Vt.) 2020 campaign. 

“I want to say for all candidates … we are responsible for the people who claim to be our supporters and do really threatening, ugly, dangerous things to others,” Warren said in an interview with MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow. 

The interview with the Massachusetts lawmaker was held the same day she announced she’d be ending her presidential campaign. 

Maddow asked Warren about attacks Sanders’s supporters have made online directed at her and her supporters, noting tweets of snake emojis and others issuing calls for Democrats to launch a primary challenge against Warren in her Senate race. 

“It’s not just about me,” Warren said. “I think that’s a real problem with this online bullying and sort of organized nastiness.” 

Asked if it is a bigger problem among supporters of Sanders’s campaign, Warren said it is. 

“It just is,” she said. 

Warren told Maddow she has spoken to Sanders about this issue. 

“It was short, but yeah we’ve talked about it,” Warren said. “I think it’s a real problem.” 

Sanders condemned “ugly, personal attacks” sent by his supporters against Warren and anyone else in a separate interview with Maddow on Wednesday. 

The issue is not solely “mean things” people say, Warren said. She also made mention of the top two Culinary Union officials in Nevada that claimed they faced attacks after the union released a candidate score card taking aim at Sanders. 

Warren said similar attacks were made against women leading the Working Families Party after it endorsed her campaign. 

The senator also suggested that just condemning remarks may not be enough and that candidates should consider implementing plans to fix the core issue. 

She said campaigns should consider creative solutions to address the issue instead of “throwing up our hands and saying, ‘no, we can’t do it.’”

After another exchange with the MSNBC host, Warren recommended that campaigns designate staff to scour social media and report and condemn vitriolic posts on the platforms.